Event Coverage

Built 18Part 1

Event

The difficult second album, the second year syndrome, the sophomore slump… these were terms that I never wanted to associate with Built, so after a successful debut year we had no choice but to step things up… bigger, better!

I think one of the best attributes of the Built team is that we come from different backgrounds – it means we have our finger on the pulse in many different aspects of the automotive world. At Fitted State we are heavily invested in the stance and modified scenes, Blackwater Graphics bring motorsport and bikes to the table, while Blok51 regularly deal with those obsessed with clean cars, particularly the classic scene.

Built is a melting pot of our experiences and what we feel it gives you, is a show like no other. We are pretty confident in saying that you’ll struggle to find a show with as much diversity and it’s this diversity that seems to have resonated with people. Where else would you find a Ferrari, a Vespa, a stanced quad, armoured vehicles, Little Tykes cars, a Vauxhall Victor and a #001 chassis historic rally car all under the same roof?

Too often in the automotive world we can get stuck inside our own little bubble and only deem what we know as acceptable. The beauty of Built is that it’s a celebration of all things automotive, the lines are blurred and it’s great to see people taking the time to appreciate builds that they would never dream of doing themselves.

For us it was great to see how far the event has come in just one year.The level of cars that applied this year was phenomenal and we had to make some really difficult decisions to get 500 applicants down to just 100 indoor spots. The shear interest in people wanting to display their cars this year meant we had to more than double the space we had available outdoors… and we still ran out of room at 10:30am.

We also had our first international guest in Henry Clausnitzer who brought his jungle themed Volkswagen Vento 2,000km from Germany, as well as lots more guests from mainland UK.

The most overwhelming part though was you. You came out in your droves and supported the event in your thousands and without you coming to take in the show, supporting our traders, supporting us, Built would not be possible. So thank you.

We will be back in 2019 and we plan to go bigger and better again. Until then, enjoy the photos – we will be back with Part 2 at the end of this week.